Dear friends, welcome to our Online Retreat.

It is so wonderful to have you with us for the most healing online retreat that we have ever offered, with the title “Healing Ourselves – Healing the World.”

This is a new experience and, indeed, an opportunity, for Thai Plum Village to offer an online retreat.

This is a chance for us to practice to embrace our suffering by practicing and being healed together during this global time of crisis with the Covid-19 pandemic.

We wish you a wonderful experience; may you have healing and inner peace throughout this retreat.

Intimate group interactions with monastics

Join a group of 16-20 people, guided by a monastic. These “Dharma Sharing” groups are a unique Plum Village offering and a highlight of the retreat. It’s a great way to enjoy live interaction, and to hear, learn, and connect deeply with people from many different countries and backgrounds. Dharma Sharing also provides a chance to ask questions to the monastics and receive guidance or recommendations for deepening your mindfulness practice.

Beginning Anew Presentation with Sr Chân Không Sister Chân Không, the first fully ordained monastic disciple of Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh, received full Bhikshuni ordination from Thầy on November 17, 1988, in India. In 1990, she received the Dharma Lamp Transmission from Thầy. She has been the director of Thầy’s humanitarian projects since the 1960’s. Born in 1938 in Ben Tre, southern Vietnam, she began to study Buddhism with Thầy in November 1959, and later helped Thầy set up the School of Youth for Social Service, training thousands of young social workers to bring aid to remote war-devastated villages.

In 1966, she became one of the original six members of the Order of Interbeing. She organized the Buddhist Peace Delegation at the Paris Peace Talks in 1969, and in the 1970’s, assisted Thầy in his world tours calling for peace. She was instrumental in directing emergency humanitarian efforts to rescue Vietnamese Boat People from the high seas, as well as in leading sponsorship programs for over 14,000 orphans in Vietnam. 1. In the 1980’s, Sister Chân Không helped Thầy establish Plum Village Monastery in southwestern France, and is today the most senior nun of the International Plum Village Sangha. She began her social work as a teenager in city slums, and now, with her deep mindfulness practice as a nun, she has brought reconciliation and healing to families, couples, communities, and workplaces worldwide. From her deep practice and guidance, we can learn true love and how to relax body and mind to heal ourselves.

Dharma Talk – Day 1 – Brother Pháp Niệm – “Cultivating Happiness”

In the first Dharma Talk of our online retreat, Brother Pháp Niệm will share with us about cultivating happiness. We all want to be happy and to bring happiness to our loved ones, but due to our notions of happiness and beliefs about what will make us happy, we unwittingly inhibit our own capacity to be happy, and we may unintentionally cause suffering for those around us and for ourselves. When we confuse happiness with the experience of external pleasures, we can easily get caught in chasing after them thinking we are pursuing happiness. So, what is true happiness? And how can we cultivate true happiness in our daily lives?

In the past year, all of our lives have had to change drastically to adapt to the global Covid-19 pandemic, and we may feel that our happiness is less important than the urgent issues we must face each day. However, when we understand clearly what true happiness is, we will see that cultivating happiness right in the midst of our challenges will enable us to face and handle every situation with more stability, clarity, and peace. True happiness also has the power to heal, so, in accord with our retreat theme, “Healing Ourselves – Healing the World,” the cultivation of happiness is an essential element in the process of healing.

Dharma Talk – Day 2 – Sister Lương Nghiêm – “Transformation and Healing”

In order to cultivate happiness in our daily lives, we need to transform our afflictions. In the second Dharma Talk of our online retreat, Sister Lương Nghiêm will share with us about the art of transformation and healing. As our teacher has taught, “When we know the art of how to suffer, we suffer much less. We’re able to make use of the mud of our suffering to grow lotuses of love and understanding. Living our life fully and deeply requires courage. If we cannot be happy, right here and right now, we need to ask ourselves why. If we’re having difficulty touching peace and the wonders of the cosmos in our daily life, there must be something getting in the way. We need to find out what it is. What’s weighing us down or pulling us away from the present moment?” (The Art of Living, p. 163)

Q&A – Day 3 – Questions from Your Heart – Br. Pháp Niệm and Sr. Định Nghiêm

We will have one Question-and-Answer session for our online retreat. This is an opportunity for us to ask our panel of Dharma Teachers questions from our heart. We can ask questions which come from our direct experiences and difficulties. A good question for the Q & A comes from the heart because such questions can touch the lives of many people. We should avoid asking theoretical or trivial questions; Google can answer these questions for us. Our Dharma Teachers have many years of experience in the practice of mindfulness from which they will be able to share in order to help us overcome our difficulties and suffering. So we are invited to take advantage of this precious opportunity to ask our heart’s deep questions.

Dharma Talk – Day 4 – Brother Pháp Tử – “Joy to the World”

In the third and final Dharma Talk of our online retreat, Brother Pháp Tử will help us relate what we have learned, practiced, and transformed during this retreat to our lives in the world. When we are able to live happily in each moment, to transform our suffering and heal ourselves, we are also taking care of our loved ones, those around us, and the world. With the insight of Interbeing, we can see this truth. Our own healing and happiness contribute to the healing and happiness of the world. We may wish to “change the world,” to put an end to social injustice, poverty, starvation, pollution, climate change, war, domestic violence, the spread of Covid-19, etc. However, if we cannot heal ourselves by transforming the roots of these issues in our own lives, we will be unable to do this for the world. On the other hand, while we transform and heal ourselves, we automatically heal and transform the world. When we have joy in our lives, we effortlessly bring joy to the word.